A Black Day
by misswhiteblack
Summary: When Sirius died it effect two people that Harry could never even possibly imagine existed ...


If that alarm clock went off once more I was going to throw it across the room. It had gone off already and I just didn't know what to do. It was on the chest of drawers and I really couldn't be bothered to get up and get it. I didn't understand why on earth I had set my alarm clock for this morning. I mean it wasn't like I had anything important to do. I mean seriously. It had gone off twice already and if I really needed to be getting up surely my mother would have come through to get me. My point exactly. So if that alarm clock went off once more I would …

_Beep! Beep! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!_

'For Crying Out Loud.'

Throwing back the black covers on my double bed I threw my legs onto the floor and made my way over to the chest of drawers to my alarm clock. Picking it up, I threw it full force across my room. The beeping stopped and I heaved a large sigh of relief. Pushing my hair out of my eyes I turned to my full length mirror. I am certainly not ugly or plain, some would say I'm beautiful … my mother especially. I have long black hair that it often a bit messy. My skin is extremely pale and I sometimes look like I ghost. I have an hourglass figure and long legs. My lips are quite pink in comparison to my face but my eyes have a tendency to attract a lot of people's attention. I inherited my eyes from my mother. Slightly slanted my eyes are a bright emerald green that sparkle. My mother, Serena, always says my eyes look much more startling than hers because of my pale skin. They are the only things that allow people to know that I am my mother's daughter. In every other way I look like the replica of … my father.

It hit me then so suddenly and I had to grip the edge of my chest of drawers to keep myself vertical. My father. I remembered the reason that my alarm clock had been set, today, probably one of the worst days of my life, was my father's funeral. How could I forget? Well considering that my father had been around most of my life was probably the reason but still. I could hardly believe he was gone. I broke when I was told. I have only ever seen my father twice since I turned a year old. He was imprisoned wrongfully for twelve years. When he escaped I saw him twice and then suddenly he was dead. At the age of sixteen the father I had just had returned to me I was yet again robbed of but now permanently.

Glancing at my clock and realising the time I turned and ran out of my new bedroom. I had only been living there a week. Dumbledore thought that it would be better if my mother and I stayed in my mother's old flat since we were to attend the funeral and I was finally to transfer to my parent's old school Hogwarts. As I burst into the corridor I heard a smash coming from the kitchen and a thud of someone falling to the ground. I ran down the hall through the living and into the kitchen to find my mother, Serena Rosa White Black, sitting on the kitchen floor in full black robes with a black top and skirt, crying her eyes out a smashed mug sitting beside her and tea seeping along the ground. I bit my lip and grabbed my mother's wand from the counter. I cleared up the smashed mug and tea before collapsing down beside my mother and pulling her into a hug.

'Oh Kerr,' she whispered to me. 'I'm so sorry. I don't mean to be like this. I never wanted you to ever see me like this. It's just so hard to believe that he's really gone. I mean I was without him for so long and he came back and I keep thinking he'll turn up grinning at me and picking me up, spinning me about like he and James use to.'

I didn't know what to say. I just held her whilst she cried. My wonderful mother had once been England's most celebrated chaser and she was now a wreck. She had attended Hogwarts with her best friend James Potter and had met most of her friends there. Lily Evans, the smart red head, Emmeline Vance, the cool blonde, Hesita Jones, the tiny, funny brunette, Remus Lupin, the quiet one, Peter Pettigrew, the tag along and Sirius Black, the good-looking prankster, her husband. I knew all the stories, every single detail she could remember to tell me she had told. She had spoken of every memory with warmth and happiness shone in her eyes. Yet the stories which she could bear to be told weren't kept from me. Using a pensive she let me dive into her memories of James and Lily's death, my father's arrest and Remus' cold rejection. I knew everything, all her memories were wound up in me. I knew everything even though she never wanted me to know about the tears I still knew, I knew she hurt so much.

'Come on mum,' I said softly. 'Get up.'

I helped her to her feet as she wiped her eyes. She sniffed slightly as I gave her a large hug. Then suddenly noticing my pyjamas she turned into mother mode instead of grieving wife. She looked at me sternly.

'Kerrys Lily Alexis White Black why are you not dressed?' she asked. 'We are leaving in ten minutes so you'd better hurry up. You wouldn't want to be late now would you?'

I gave her a quick smile and she smiled back to let me know that as long as she had me she would be okay. Quickly I turned and ran back to my bedroom. I had to be strong. I missed my father with every fibre of my being but I had to be strong for my mother. She had lost him once before along with all her friends and I had been the one thing that had kept her from loosing control. Now she had lost him all over again and I had no idea how she could feel.

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As I stood watching the tombstone being erected my eyes glanced over to my mother whose tears were travelling over her face. She wasn't standing with the main part of the crowd. She stood a little bit away next to another gravestone leaning against it for support as though she trusted it with every fibre of her being. My eyes could just make out the name inscribed on the front … James "Prongs" Potter. I bit my lips to keep the tears from my own eyes. Instead of looking back at my mother I looked around at the crowd that had gathered there. I recognised a few but not many. Albus Dumbledore stood his long white hair and his beard tucked into his belt, beside him stood Minerva McGonagall quite teary-eyed but not quite crying. My eyes shifted looking over people that I didn't really recognise. Then there was the tired face of a man that I recognised from pictures that my mother had shown me, Remus Lupin. He was comforting a tiny woman with long brown hair whom I recognised as Hesita Jones and next to her trying to look strong as tears slid down her face was Emmeline Vance. I wondered if they had seen my mother.

The service ended quite abruptly and as the crowd dispersed I found myself standing alone by a rather large leafy tree watching my mother move slowly over to my father's gravestone. She didn't seem to be crying as her fingers brushed over the name craved into the black marble. I could see her biting her lip and then suddenly the man I suspected was Remus Lupin approached her. I could hear their voices even though they were so low.

'Serena,' he almost whispered as though afraid to startled her. My mother whipped around quickly and was almost relieved to see who it was. I wasn't completely sure if Remus could see she was relieved but I didn't move.

'Remus,' she began, 'I … I …'

Without so much as a word Remus Lupin pulled my mother into his arms as she burst into tears on his shoulder. She cried her heart out like I have never seen her do before. I looked at her not as just my mother but as the young girl who had fallen in love, deeply in love and was now suffering for it. My mother had told me that nothing had ever been easy for her and my dad with the rivalry between their families but she had never really thought how bad things could get.

'Excuse me,' came a male voice from just behind me. I turned round to see a boy about my age with messy dark brown hair and emerald eyes that I recognised. The round glasses could not hide them and the baggy muggle clothing couldn't hide the skinny frame of the boy anymore than the messy hair could hide the lightening bolt shaped scar on his forehead. I stared at the replica of James Potter, the boy who lived, Harry Potter.

'Harry,' the name came out of my mouth almost automatically as he looked confused at how I could possibly know his name. To him I was just a girl attending his godfather's funeral, a girl he had probably never even heard of before and couldn't possibly remember. He would never have seen the photographs of our families together. He would never have heard the stories of our mothers with us. He'd have never heard of me.

'How do you know me?' he asked, 'and who are you?'

I bit my lip not looking at him. What was I to say? Oh by-the-way I'm your godfather's daughter and I know you because my mother and my father have told me all about you. I couldn't just come out with that. So what was I to say? Well starting with my name could have been a good point.

'I'm Kerrys Lily Alexis White,' I hesitated for a moment, 'Black. You can call me Kerr.'

'That doesn't tell me who you are and what you are doing here?' he asked softly obviously not wanting to upset me. I was attending a funeral after all. I saw his eyes glance over to where my mother was being consoled by Remus but my eyes wouldn't move from his face and he eventually looked back at me. I swallowed the lump that had formed in the back of my throat. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I just had to hope we would understand.

'Harry,' I whispered my heart beating harshly in my chest, 'I'm the only daughter of the man that you have just lost. I'm the only daughter of Sirius Black and that over there is my mother Serena Rosa White Black wife to Sirius Black and best friend to James and Lily Potter.'

Harry just stared at me. I didn't think it was such a great reaction but it could have been worse. It could have been so much worse. Although looking at him it looked like he might explode any moment with questions. I suddenly thought that I didn't really want to explain right there, in the grave yard where his parents and my father were now buried. Even if my father's body was lost behind the veil there was still the monument to him.

'Harry I know this may be a little weird to you but I can't tell you how strange this is for me,' I told him not completely sure what to say. 'I have known about you my whole life. My mother has pictures of you and me together with our parents. I have been dying to meet you my whole life. What is even stranger is that Sirius was my father and you know him better than I will ever know him. I always thought he would be the one to introduce us but it hasn't turned out that way. He wanted you to know about me so much but he felt that you needed his support before he told you. I have never laid eyes on you since we were a year old but I have been told every story about you that my father knew.'

Harry just stood staring at me. The shock passed over his face and I wondered at how much he looked like James. If I could compare him to the pictures my mother had of James Potter at the age of sixteen I knew that the only difference would be the almond shaped emerald eyes the exact same as Lily's. Merlin I felt like I knew him already. I had been told so much of James and Lily and of Harry that I felt that he was already my family. I felt as though he had been my best friend for all the years of my life.

'Merlin,' he whispered not sure how to look, 'you look just like Sirius.'

I smiled tears welling in my eyes and I stepped towards him.

'You know Harry,' I said grinning slightly and wiping my tears away before they could spill down my cheeks, 'It's great to finally meet the boy that if things had turned out the way our parents had planned I would have called best friend.'

The next thing he said was so weird and so unexpected that I was sure that not even my father would have predicted it. Here I stood on the day of my father's funeral in the grave yard where he was buried along with his best friends James and Lily Potter. I was facing the young boy that I had been dying to meet all my life and the words that had passed between us had not even half resolved what either of us was thinking but then he spoke, words that I will never ever forget, always remember.

'Well, introduce me to your mother,' he said holding out his hand towards me and then smiling continued, 'best friend.'


End file.
